Earth Day: It’s About More Than Climate Change
Recognizing Who We Are As Evolving Human Beings
Friday, April 22 is Earth Day. The now-annual observance began in 1970 as what was to have been an “environmental teach-in” proposed by Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin (no relation to the author of this piece). He and event director Denis Hayes emboldened their initial vision and branded it as Earth Day. In gatherings across the country 20 million people demanded protection for the environment. It was the largest single-day demonstration in human history. I was there. Perhaps you were too.
Now more than a half century later, Earth Day has become an international event in which a billion people participate. Its scope has broadened beyond clean air and water to the overarching issue of climate change. It was on Earth Day 2016 when over 120 nations signed the Paris Agreement to bring into force that landmark treaty to mitigate climate change.
The signing of the Agreement, and the steps nations take to effectuate it, are political actions. But awareness of climate change and its threat to the viability of Planet Earth as a livable habitat for human beings is far more than a matter of geopolitics. It is a manifestation of the emergence of a new human species, Homo electric.
It has long been the accepted wisdom that Homo sapiens is the sole surviving species of human from millions of years of evolution. But we must recognize the profound changes we have been undergoing in who are and how we live. Controlling fire and using tools were key evolutionary milestones for early humans. So too for us are controlling electricity and using its applications.
Once people could only interact with one another face-to-face. Now electronic communications enable us to interact remotely, which we do regularly and frequently. Once human and animal muscle power, and the forces of wind and water, were how we moved ourselves and other things in the physical world. Now we use devices powered by electricity that can exert far greater force than humans ever could have imagined not so long ago. These extensions of our bodies are enhanced by extensions of our minds through computer power.
As a species, sapiens is highly territorial, which has led throughout human history to rapacious acts of conquest and destruction, even now with the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But in electrics a new state of mind is arising, of planetary awareness, of our oneness with all people, and indeed with all living things. Climate change on the scale we are experiencing is a by-product of the Electric Age.
On Earth Day, let us not only demonstrate our concern for the environment and for climate change. Let us embrace a new awareness of our responsibilities as citizens of Planet Earth, and of who we are as members of the species Homo electric.
“You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will live as one.”
— John Lennon
For an inspiring version of the song by a new generation, watch Emile Linge here.
Read more about the evolution of Homo electric in my 13-part series which begins here.
